The BJP on Saturday released its second list of 36 candidates for the Gujarat Assembly polls, taking the number of candidates announced so far to 106. As many as 76 candidates are yet to be named.
In the second list released by the party, a dozen sitting legislators have been dropped, including sitting Minister Nirmala Wadhwani from the Naroda Assembly segment in Ahmedabad city. Besides that, former Minister Mangubhai has also been dropped from his tribal reserved Gandevi seat.
In Gondal, the party has dropped sitting legislator Jairajsinh Jadeja after he was convicted in a murder case and is now in jail. The party has instead fielded his wife, Geetaba Jadeja, from Gondal, a Patidar-dominated seat in Rajkot district.
“We have today released the second list while Congress leaders are fighting among themselves and are not able to decide their candidates,” said Gujarat BJP President Jitu Vaghani after the list was released from the party headquarters in New Delhi.
Finding a place
Prominent among those in the second list are junior Home Minister Pradipsinh Jadeja from Vatva in Ahmedabad, Water Resources Minister Babubhai Bokhiria from Porbandar and former Porbandar parliamentarian Haribhai Patel from Dhoraji constituency. The second list includes candidates for 12 Scheduled Tribe (ST) reserved constituencies and two Scheduled Castes (SC) reserved seats.
The first list announced on Friday included 11 ST reserved and 3 SC reserved seats. There are 27 ST reserved and 13 SC reserved seats in the State.
Meanwhile, after the first list released, the ruling party has faced protests in around 10 constituencies where party workers were not satisfied with the party’s choice of candidate.
Kodinar MLA and parliamentary secretary Jethabhai Solanki has resigned from the party after his name did not figure in the list while in Padra, more than 200 party workers including Vadodara district panchayat BJP leader have resigned after sitting legislator Dinu Patel was repeated by the party.
